Report: Farm policy progess gets 'F'

Little to no progress has been made on the recommendations made in 2008 by the landmark Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production, according to a progress report issued Tuesday by Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future.

In fact, if Bob Martin, who served as executive director of the Pew Commission, had to grade progress on its recommendations, “I would give an ‘F,’” he told POLITICO Pro.

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The Pew Commission threw a significant amount of gasoline on the conversation about animal agriculture when it released its report five years ago. Based on a 2½-year examination, the commission warned that the concentration of farm animals in larger and larger numbers increases pathogen risks. It cited prolonged worker contact with animals, increased pathogen transmission within a herd or flock and increased opportunities for generations of antimicrobial resistant bacteria or new strains of viruses.

“Significant changes must be implemented and must start now,” the report warned.

But half a decade later, little has been done, says a 69-page progress report from the Johns Hopkins group. None of the commission’s top six recommendations, including beefing up environmental oversight and increasing competition in the livestock markets, have been adopted.

The Johns Hopkins CLF report, which was conducted without Pew’s involvement, uses terms like “meager success” and “failure.” It blames the Obama administration, which the report contends has not engaged on the recommendations “in a meaningful way” despite expectations by many that it would be more reform-minded than the Bush administration. To the contrary, the report says Obama’s regulatory agencies have “acted regressively in their decision-making and policy-making procedures.”

The report also assigns blame to the House for favoring less regulation.

“From a regulatory and legislative standpoint, Congress and the administration have capitulated on every point under industry pressure,” said Martin, who was executive director of the Pew Commission and now serves as program director for the Johns Hopkins CLF food policy program.

Take the controversial antibiotics issue. The commission’s top recommendation — out of a total of 24 that were agreed upon by all 14 commissioners — was to phase out and then ban the nontherapeutic use of antimicrobials.

As health advocates often point out, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said during her confirmation hearing that she would treat antibiotic resistance as if her hair were on fire.

While there were some calls on the Hill for legislative action, eventually the FDA launched its own strategy for tackling the problem. In 2012, the agency announced Draft Guidance #213 and the Veterinary Feed Directive, which together aim to move away from feed efficiency and growth promotion uses of antimicrobials toward only treatment, control and prevention of diseases and to bring all antimicrobial use under veterinary oversight.

“We’re encouraged that animal-drug companies have indicated they will comply,” said Laura Rogers, director of Pew’s campaign to reduce antibiotic use in agriculture. “Yet while the policy is designed to eliminate the use of antibiotics for growth promotion, it might still allow other antibiotic practices that endanger human health. We will continue to encourage the Obama administration and Congress to take additional action to curb all nontherapeutic antibiotic uses.”

But CLF’s report issued Tuesday is more critical, calling FDA’s strategy “inconsistent” with the commission’s recommendations because it still allows for routine disease prevention.

“In many cases, the doses and durations of antimicrobial use for disease prevention are similar or even identical to the doses and durations utilized for production purposes,” according to the report.

On the other five commission recommendations, which include improving disease monitoring, improving regulation, phasing out intensive confinement, increasing competition in livestock markets and improving research in animal agriculture, the report’s prognosis is nearly unequivocal on the lack of progress. One of the only areas of improvement, according to CLF, is the success the Humane Society of the United States has had striking deals with companies on phasing out gestation crates and battery cages — as well as limited success pushing state-level regulations.

The Animal Agriculture Alliance, of course, sees these issues entirely differently. The Alliance on Monday released a 24-page report titled “What the Center for a Livable Future, Pew Commission and Others Aren’t Telling You About Food Production,” to counter the claims made by CLF and the Commission and tout the progress toward greater sustainability.

“The industry has made an enormous amount of progress — of our own accord — in terms of ensuring animal well-being, protecting the environment, using antibiotics responsibly and producing the world’s safest food,” said Emily Meredith, a spokesperson for the Alliance.

The report, which features a foreword written by Dr. Richard Raymond, who served as undersecretary for food safety during the Bush administration, notes that it is “simply not sustainable for farmers to mistreat animals — it costs more to grow stressed animals to market weight and lowers the quality of the meat.”

As for antibiotics usage, the Alliance says in its report that “farmers, ranchers and veterinarians take the issue of antimicrobial resistance and residues very seriously.”

“Although most scientists — and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — agree that improper use of antibiotics in human medicine is the greatest contributing factor in the formation of resistant bacteria affecting humans, the government, the animal health industry, farmers and ranchers have proactively implemented multiple steps to ensure antibiotic use in food-producing animals does not affect human health and to minimize the development of antibiotic resistant bacteria,” reads the Alliance’s report.